Di-624+ And Dwl-520+ Won't Talk To Each Other.

Hi all,

I wonder if you can help me with a problem I'm encountering. I have OpenSUSE 10.3 and whilst I'm fairly new to Linux, I'm not new to computers (I'm a Windows convert). I've managed to get most things to work under linux eventually with lots of tinkering but this one has got me stumped.

I have a D-Link DI-624+ wireless router and a D-Link DWL-520+ wireless network card. I've had the router for ages but I stupidly got the PCI card recently without checking how well it worked under linux. My computer has been wired to the router for a long time and the missus and kid use the wireless. My missus laptop is running OpenSUSE 10.3 and works okay. My son's desktop is using Windows and also works okay. Thus, I know it's not the router that's got the problem.

I've tried the card under Windows and it works fine so there's something wrong with my linux setup. It took some time to figure out how to even get linux to recognise the card but it finally registeres in the YaST --> Network Devices --> Network Card using the acx drivers. I had to try a few different firmwards from something called Frostwire and eventually the 'acx111_1.2.1.34' firmware made the thing spring to life. I had a play with the KNetworkManager and my wireless network appears in the list as 'BurmaniaWLAN' with the associated lock and key as it's WEP encrypted. The wireless settings in my router are:

Wireless : Enable
SSID : BurmaniaWLAN
Channel : 9
Authentication : Open System
Passphrase : **********
WEP : Enabled
WEP Encryption : 64Bit
WEP Mode : HEX
Key1 : **********
Key2 :
Key3 :
Key4 :

If I select the wirless network from KNetworkManager I get the requester to connect with the following information:

Name (ESSID) : BurmaniaWLAN
Device : Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbos Wireless Interface (wlan0)

Now, this is where things seem to go wrong. I change the encryption to WEP 40/104-bit hex and the key mentioned above, with Show Credentials set so I can make sure it's typed correctly. I leave the Authentication on 'Open System'. It gets to 'Activation stage: Configuring device' (28%) and then waits a while before giving up. Sometimes the requester comes back, sometimes not. I've tried using Passphrase and ASCII but they don't work (not that I expected them to). Eventually I cancel it and it falls back to the wired network.

I need to get the wireless working because I'm being kicked out of my study for an impending baby and the router has to stay put, and I'm not laying cable around the house just because I can't get a wireless card to work! )

Here is some other info, in case it helps:

burmania-linux:~ # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82925X/XE Memory Controller Hub (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82925X/XE PCI Express Root Port (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FR (ICH6/ICH6R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FR/FRW (ICH6R/ICH6RW) SATA Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GTS (rev a1)
05:04.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): NEC Corporation uPD72874 IEEE1394 OHCI 1.1 3-port PHY-Link Ctrlr (rev 01)
05:09.0 Network controller: Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface
80:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 01)
burmania-linux:~ # more /etc/resolv.conf
### BEGIN INFO
#
# Modified_by: NetworkManager
# Process: /usr/bin/NetworkManager
# Process_id: 13910
#
### END INFO

nameserver 192.168.0.1

burmania-linux:~ # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:0A:9D:70:F6
inet addr:192.168.0.103 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::211:aff:fe9d:70f6/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1115 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1025 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:750547 (732.9 Kb) TX bytes:251916 (246.0 Kb)
Interrupt:17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:548 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:548 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:33328 (32.5 Kb) TX bytes:33328 (32.5 Kb)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:95:14:B6:CB
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:103 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:28871 (28.1 Kb) TX bytes:5540 (5.4 Kb)
Interrupt:20

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give, even if it's just some pointers to where to look for a more detailed log about what is going wrong.

Thanks in advance!
Richard.

I'm not familiar with that chipset, but anyway...

Firstly, how do you have the wireless configured to get its IP address. If you are using DHCP, then give it a fixed ip on the appropriate network.

Secondly, does the wlan associate with the router if you set it for open (ie no encryption)?

I always test connections initially with open, and introduce encryption when I know everthing else is fine.

Is there some particular reason you need to use WEP?

Paul

I had the wireless configured to use DHCP as that is what I have the other wireless devices set to. I have changed it to a static IP but that made no difference.

I had the WEP enabled to keep people from using my wireless connection. I live in a reasonably densely populated area and I don't want some idiot down the road using my connection to download something nasty and the blame end up in my lap. But, for the purposes of getting this working, I have turned the WEP off. Effectively, there is no authentication or encryption.

The end result is that nothing has changed, it still fails in the same way but without the WEP requester, obviously.

Any ideas?

try changing to traditional ifup method of connecting. network manager still has some problems with certain wireless devices

Andy

I've just turned it back to ifup and played around with it a bit with no success. I tried turning eth0 off and wlan0 on and off a few times. In the end, I got this from 'ifstatus wlan0':

burmania-linux:/home/richard # ifstatus wlan0
wlan0 device: Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface
wlan0 is up
3: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
link/ether 00:11:95:14:b6:cb brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.0.108/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global wlan0
wlan0 IP address: 192.168.0.108/24
Configured routes for interface wlan0:
169.254.0.0 - 255.255.0.0 wlan0
Active routes for interface wlan0:
192.168.0.0/24 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.0.108
169.254.0.0/16 scope link
1 of 1 configured routes for interface wlan0 up
wlan0 IEEE 802.11b+/g+ ESSID:"BurmaniaWLAN" Nickname:"burmania-linux"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.452 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity=1/3
Retry min limit:7 RTS thrff
Encryption key:FADF-ADFA-DF Security modepen
Power Managementff
Link Quality=57/100 Signal level=40/100 Noise level=0/100
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Does this help with some diagnostics? I notice that it says 'Not associated', is that significant?

Cheers,
Richard.

have you set the device up via yast - network devices network cards ?
it will say it's not associated because it hasn't managed to connect. some things to check:

1 ) check firewall is set to external on the device
2 ) you don't have mac address filtering turned on at the router
3 ) it is set to come up at boot time
4 ) user controlled is selected


Andy

Hi Andy, thanks for your help.

The device was setup during OpenSUSE install but needed me to put the firmware in place (/lib/firmware) in order for it to function.

1) I'd already figured that the firewall needed to say external, so that's been set all along.
2) I don't have MAC filtering turned on.
3) It is set to activate at boot time.
4) I assume you mean the 'Enable Device Control for Non-root User via KInternet' checkbox which I have just checked.

I have rebooted to make sure that the settings have taken place and it stills doesn't work. Both interfaces are ifup when I boot and the minute I ifdown eth0 I lose internet connection. Nothing has changed in the 'ifconfig wlan0' except that the section on configured and active routes has disappeared.

try changing the channel on the router, could be too much interference on the channel.

Andy

I had the WEP enabled to keep people from using my wireless connection. I live in a reasonably densely populated area and I don't want some idiot down the road using my connection to download something nasty and the blame end up in my lap. But, for the purposes of getting this working, I have turned the WEP off. Effectively, there is no authentication or encryption.[/b]

Sorry, I meant using WEP instead of a more secure method like WPA.

Of course, it's academic at this point until you can establish a wireless connection.

I guess you've found this resource: acx111 support site ?

Anyway, if the driver proves problematic, may I suggest that you consider ndiswrapper? This software is a wrapper layer for linux than allows you to use native XP drivers for network devices.

Paul

Hi Paul/Andy,

Thanks for all your help. I gave up on the acx drivers - I'd tried all the different things that I could with that driver and it didn't work.

I used ndiswrapper instead and it works fine. There were a few confusing steps that aren't mentioned or explained clearly on the ndiswrapper wiki but I got there in the end.

For anyone who finds this thread through a search engine and it having the same problems as I did, here are the steps I took:

1) Go to the ndiswrapper SourceForge site: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/ and download the latest ndiswrapper.
2) Follow the instructions in the INSTALL file to install ndiswrapper on your system.
3) Insert the CD that came with the card, navigate to the Drivers/WinXP folder and run 'ndiswrapper -i GPLUS.inf'. Your card is now effectively 'installed'.
4) Run 'modprobe ndiswrapper'. You should now find that 'iwconfig' shows your card.
5) Run 'iwconfig wlan0 service Managed'.
6) Run 'iwconfig wlan0 essid <Your Wirelss Network Name>'.
7) Run 'dhcpcd wlan0'.

And hopefully it should now be working. Having got this far I suspect that the acx drivers were working and all I needed to do was run the dhcpcd command as the entry in ifconfig/iwconfig was the same as before and all that was missing was obtaining an IP address. I might have a play and see if I can get the native drivers working again when I've got more time.

Thank you all for your kind help!

Cheers,
Richard.